


Reiko Kobayashi

by NazdurukBugzappa



Category: Full Metal Panic, Ranma 1/2, 小林さんちのメイドラゴン | Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon | Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:20:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26121043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NazdurukBugzappa/pseuds/NazdurukBugzappa
Summary: Xian-Pu struggled in vain against the manacles securing her to the stone altar. She could swear the air was getting heavier as the cloaked figures chanted out their parts of whatever ritual she was an unwilling part of.Just as the cult leader was raising his athame for the strike that would end her life, Xian-Pu gave a silent prayer to the gods...
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

Reiko Kobayashi  
Chapter 1

Xian-Pu struggled in vain against the manacles securing her to the stone altar. She could swear the air was getting heavier as the cloaked figures chanted out their parts of whatever ritual she was an unwilling part of.

Just as the cult leader was raising his athame for the strike that would end her life, Xian-Pu gave a silent prayer to the gods.

“Kuso!”

It was a simple Japanese swearword, and the first sign Xian-Pu’s fate had changed.

There was the sound of glass shattering, most likely the full-sized mirror that she saw when they dragged her to the altar.

The annoyance of the cult leader was obvious. He pointed his athame towards the intruder.

“KILL HER!” he shouted.

The next few minutes were a mass of confusion that would take several days for Xian-Pu to properly process.

First, she heard cries of surprise mixed with gasps of fear followed by the distinctive sound of bodies falling to the floor and a clatter of dropped pistols. Then, she heard a loud roar that sent shivers down her spine followed by a loud buzzing, almost like the time her younger sisters disturbed a hornets’ nest. A few moments later, there was an Eldritch scream and an earth-shaking THUD, as something huge crashed to the ground near the head of the altar.

Screams next to her drew Xian-Pu’s attention. The cult leader was a mess of pained screams and panicked flailing, as something unseen was attacking him. Less than two minutes later, seven shapes withdrew from the now-dead man’s robes. They were just under six inches tall and looked like a cross between the ‘fairies’ from the storybook she once read as a child and hornets. Each of them had a humanoid body, albeit tiny and with four arms, and a pale blue and white striped ‘abdomen’ section extending from their lower-backs. 

Venom was still dripping from the stingers of two of them.

Part of Xian-Pu’s mind initially thought she must have gone insane from terror, as she took in the rest of what she was seeing. All seven of them were wearing tiny grey/blue/white camouflaged combat fatigues, including flak vests. Five of the small creatures carried doll-sized machine-guns. One member of the squadron/swarm wielded a multi-barrelled weapon in her four arms that was roughly the size of a ‘normal’ pistol.

Instead of wings, she appeared to have a backpack with two large (relatively) flat, almost disclike, cylinders attached to it, which glowed blue around the edges, as did her weapon. The cylinders changed direction every so often to correct her course. The last member of the group held a pair of tiny pistols and signalled towards the altar with one of her free hands, causing Xian-Pu to shy back as far as her restraints would allow.

“==-=--…=*=,” the ‘squad leader’ voice sounded like clicks, buzzes, whistles and tinkles. She kicked at the chains with tiny combat boots. 

The ‘squad specialist’ positioned herself near the chain, while the others took up covering positions, and the ‘squad leader’ waved her hands to get Xian-Pu’s attention.

“--__=+ ** ++ ==-=--…=*=,” said the specialist. The hand-gestures and lowering of darkened visors on hers and the squad’s helmets, while their seventh member made adjustments to her weapon, reinforced what they were trying to say: _Don’t look directly at the chains when she fires up her weapon._

As soon as Xian-Pu looked away, there was a humming, which increased in volume, and she could smell ozone, followed by rapidly-heating metal. They were using whatever that weapon was to cut her chains, and she was not going to let her fear of the unknown get in the way of her freedom.

While all of this was happening, she could hear hand-to-hand combat, interspersed with what she assumed was spell-fire, along with several screams cut short. Once both her hands were free, and she could sit up, Xian-Pu risked a glance at what was happening with her other rescuers.

…or rescuer, as it turned out…

The woman was six-feet-tall, had blue-tipped red hair and was very curvy. She was wearing beige and black combat fatigues, had an odd headdress that looked like a cross between a tiara and backswept horns. There was a rigid, metallic-purple, cape on her back and a tethered blade, also metallic-purple, attached to the small of her back. The affectations almost made her look like she had wings and a dragon’s tail.

The woman fought with a mix of martial arts’ styles and carried an eight-inch European-style sword-breaker in her hand. The look of surprise given by a cultist as the snapped blade of his Jian was slammed into his friend’s knee was priceless. Whatever the weapon was made of, not many swords would survive getting parried by this Goddess of battle.

Her saviour then headbutted the cultist in front of her, with a solid **crack** , and a spray of blood. It seemed the horns were more practical than decorative. She swept her legs low, dropping another to the ground. A moment later, a further cultist had the sword-breaker sticking out of his neck.

There were bodies all around her, either dead or unconscious, and at least one cultist broke and ran when the woman used what resembled Great-Grandmother Kuh-Lon’s Cold-Ki attack on another cultist. With her breath.

She watched, impressed, as a Dao-wielder was literally disarmed, when the woman grabbed his sword arm and kicked him in the chest. She then beat him unconscious with his own arm.

Xian-Pu gasped, as another cultist tried to stab the woman in the back with the head-cultist’s athame, only to have the metallic-purple blade slam into his chin and exit the top of his head. Xian-Pu had no idea what technique she used to control the blade. It almost looked like it was a real tail.

By the time Xian-Pu’s restraints were all cut, there were only two cultists remaining. She held them in the air, one in each hand, as if they weighed almost nothing. There was a crunch, as she slammed them together, and dropped their unconscious bodies.

The woman then gave a cursory look around the room and, satisfied that no one was getting back up, walked towards Xian-Pu and pulled out a blanket, seemingly out of nowhere.

Overwhelmed by the realisation the was now safe, Xian-Pu passed out.

===//===

In an undisclosed location, a black-clad figure twitched the corners of his mouth into a small smile as he watched the halberd slam into the dark shape.

Sure, he wanted the magic that was keeping the souls in this reality from entering the cycle of life, death and rebirth removed, but not at the expense of letting one of _**those** _ gain a foothold. Once one made it in, more would follow.

It was rather clever of Eris to find the one way to get a pair of Chaos Nexuses to meet each other, without alerting the zealot. All he needed to do now was make sure the Yggdrasil and Nidhogg networks don’t flag any of Kobayashi Mizuchi’s actions as belonging to either of theirs. It wouldn’t do good to ‘fix’ the world, only to have Armageddon happen right afterwards.

He pulled a smartphone out of his pocket and tapped the screen a few times. “Good morning Eris, its Azrael. I believe I owe you a drink or ten….”

===//===

Lieutenant Zhao handcuffed the fleeing ‘person of interest’ to a convenient torch-rack and stepped into the room. There were bodies strewn everywhere. Some had the shards of a large mirror jutting from their necks and/or heads. Others had gashes, broken bones or severed limbs.

“Are those cryogenic burns?” whispered on of his subordinates, pointing to one of the bodies.

He immediately assigned two of his squad to check for survivors. It was all he could do not to look at the large shape that dominated what was obviously a ritual chamber. It had a halberd jutting out of its tentacled head, right between its upper eyes. The glow coming off the circuitry on what he could see of its blade unsettled him somewhat.

He carefully walked towards the two women he saw sitting on the altar in the centre of the ritual chamber. The blood-soaked redhead looked to be in her late teens to early-twenties, although he knew from his 2IC’s age not to judge from appearances. She was wearing beige and black combat fatigues, with patches identifying her as an SRT in something called the Interspecies Cultural Exchange Program. The UN’s polar-relief in the centre of the patch, and that she had wings and a tail, meant there would be a lot of awkward questions if he handled this wrong. Questions that would be ‘above his pay-grade’.

The redhead was making soothing noises and comforting the blanket-wrapped purple-haired teenager. From the remains of the chains he could see, Zhao could guess what nearly happened to her.

The redhead glanced up. “The rest of my squadron is doing a sweep of the back rooms. This lot,” her wing gestured, like an arm, over the bodies, “were keeping …prisoners,” she quietly spoke. “I would suggest sending some of your troops to get blankets. None of them are clothed.”

===//===

Xian-Pu felt safe. She was in the lap of her rescuer, her strong, yet gentle, arms around her. It almost felt like being in her mother’s arms again, even with the strange double-heartbeat. A small part of her resented having been seen so weak and vulnerable, but it was quickly silenced by the part that said ‘shut up, you were almost a virgin sacrifice to a demon, you’re allowed to feel weak and vulnerable’.

===//===

Zhao watched in fascination, as Yuki, the squad’s sergeant applied ointment to the wing-stumps of Nadare. They acted like a squadron, and not a swarm, while they were sweeping the temple. Their military-discipline was obvious. However, now they were ‘off-duty’, he could see that they were a family group, with Yuki as the swarm’s …mother? …queen?

He always suspected that there were ‘gaps’ in his briefing materials, probably his only complaint about the Party’s blanket policies on religion and the supernatural, and right now he was looking at actual fairies. Okay, they called themselves ‘Hornet Pixies’, implying that there were different varieties, but still… fairies.

Shen, his 2IC, long-time …friend… and ‘technical advisor’, was off sulking somewhere. Seeing Nadare’s flight pack, to replace her missing wings, was one too many shocks today.

He did not blame him. According to the storybooks, fairies just flittered around, making flowers grow and watching over woodland creatures. They do not normally carry tiny automatic weapons, let alone have technology straight out of science-fiction, like Nadare’s laser weapon or her gravity-repulsion flight-pack.

Then again, Shen could also be sulking because there was another dragon in ‘his territory’.

He looked over at the eight ID cards sitting on his desk. The fairies’ cards were simple: name, race, place and date of birth, blood type, etc. He had no idea if the IDs were enchanted or technological, but where the photograph would normally be, a six-inch 3D holographic image projected out of the card.

Commander Kobayashi’s was more complex. Sliding a finger across the base of her ‘photo square’ changed the image between a humanoid and a three-headed dragon. Her height, weight and wingspan fields had both forms’ profiles listed. It was also double-sided. One side belonging to the Interspecies Cultural Exchange Program, and the other to the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce. It looked like her UNIT ID was primarily to access the Records and Archives department. He had seen similar double-sided IDs amongst Records and Archives staff who had to travel between departments while on ‘light duties’ in Beijing.

Zhao at least partially understood some of the details for how Kobayashi and her ‘Combat Air Patrol’ ended up in the temple. Kobayashi was on ‘desk duty’ on the orders of the Deputy Director of ICEP, when a request for assistance cataloguing some artefacts that were found in an old manor-house came to her office. She took up the mission, to get out of the office for a while, and accidentally touched a magic mirror while dodging a booby-trap the clearance teams missed. Her Hornet-pixies were swept up in her movements at the time.

The shattered mirror, most of which was still lodged in several dead bodies, was part of a matched set. Touch one, get transported to the other.

“I’ve already figured out what this ‘Interspecies Cultural Exchange Program’ is, given that you’re pixies working with a dragon, but what is the ‘United Nations Intelligence Taskforce’?” he asked.

“Their primary focus is to deal with threats to a country that do not originate from a recognised foreign government,” the ‘voice’ he associated with Yuki spoke through his intercom’s speaker. That was another item they had. Yuki had wired-in a device that adjusted the frequencies their small bodies made when speaking into something that a human could understand.

“So, terrorists or organisations like that ‘SPECTRE’ from those James Bond movies,” he replied.

“As far as the general population are concerned,” Yuki confirmed. “Keep going. You’ll figure out the rest…”

An image of a black, tentacled head with a magic halberd protruding from it filled his head. His face lit up in realisation. “Demon incursions. That explains why the UN would be trying to get ‘monsters’ recognised as ‘people’.” He looked at the IDs again. “Parallel world, right? Kobayashi moves like someone who’s never had to hide she isn’t human.”

“Probably,” replied Yuki. “It could also be magic-induced time travel. The rituals used to summon Squidfaces mess with the fabric of reality.”

“Parallel world or not, one thing about your arrival doesn’t make sense,” he pondered quietly. “Why would someone in such peak form be on desk duty? Obviously, it wasn’t for insubordination, or she wouldn’t have the inter-departmental clearance.”

“Think carefully,” Yuki commented. “Why would a female of marriageable-age, in peak physical condition, be assigned administrative duty?”

===//===

Shen watched through the Infirmary door’s window as Kobayashi, wearing a lilac cheongsam and pink silk pants she had acquired from somewhere, absently stroked the forehead of the sleeping Joketsuzoko girl. 

At least he had convinced her to ‘complete’ her humanoid transformation, hiding her horns, wings and tail, so the humans on the base didn’t panic.

Kobayashi made him feel unsettled. Her humanoid form was too ‘mature’ for a hatchling of merely thirty-five years and she was displaying behaviours around the girl that strongly resembled nesting behaviour. Then Kobayashi twitched and touched her stomach

…her curved stomach…

_Oh, this cannot be good,_ he thought. _She is barely a hatchling._ “Here’s your uniform back.” Shen said from the doorway. He was holding her freshly-laundered uniform in his hands. He sat down on a spare chair after watching her place the clothing in a Ki-pocket. “The doctors wanted to know why Private Wang is being violently ill, and I happened to be the first person Doctor Han saw."

“Wang? The priest?” Kobayashi asked. “He probably tried to read either my magic channels or my Ki pathways against my warnings.”

“You’re right, he shouldn’t have done that,” Shen replied. “However, reading a dragon-sized Ki-well should have caused no more than a headache.”

Kobayashi tapped the side of her head. “You’ve seen my other form on my ID card,” she commented. “There are four of me in here, and when I’m in this form, my magic channels and Ki pathways are all at right-angles, for want of a better term, to each other. The human mind usually has issues with viewing non-Euclidean geometry.”

“Oh,” he replied. “Next time he’ll know to ask permission.” He grabbed a spare chair and sat down. “Anyway, I need to ask a big favour. Dragon to dragon.”

“Depends on what it is,” she replied.

He indicated towards the sleeping girl. “I need you to look after her until you can safely get her home. Between securing the temple and its artefacts, dealing with the surviving cultists, and getting their captives safely back to their families, we are a touch short-handed. Also, if we can get you and her out of here before the higher-ups get here, it saves Zhao and myself from lots of inconvenient questions.”

===//===

Xian-Pu drifted awake to the sound of quiet singing. It was a Japanese lullaby of some sort. Carefully opening her eyes.

_At least I’m not waking up naked in a cage this time,_ she thought, remembering the last time she had woken up in an unfamiliar place. Her neck still stung from where the dart struck.

She turned her head towards the singing. There was her saviour. She was leaning back on a chair next to Xian-Pu’s bed. The woman’s song, while she stroked her hand over her curved stomach, was strangely calming.

The woman opened one eye and looked at Xian-Pu. “Good morning,” she greeted Xian-Pu in flawless Cantonese. “I hope I didn’t wake you.” She stroked her stomach. “Sakura needed calming. The local magic is unsettling her. How are you feeling?”

“Hungry,” Xian-Pu replied.

“Up for travelling?” asked the woman, as she handed over a couple of biscuits. “There are clothes on the table. I don’t know how well they’ll fit, but we might find something better in a nearby village. I’m Mizuchi, by the way.”

“Xian-Pu,” she replied as she got out of the bed and picked up the emerald green cheongsam and red silk pants. “This feels different to regular silk,” she commented, as she got into the dress. “Is it alright to just give me something this high quality?”

“My sister-in-law made it,” Mizuchi replied. “She’s an Arachne. Her silk products are always high quality.”

There was a knock at the door.

“Aunt Mizuchi, they’re only going to be able to turn a blind eye to our presence for another two hours,” said a girl’s voice from the doorway. The newcomer was a young, five-foot-one, fifteen- or sixteen-year-old with pale blue, almost white, hair with coloured streaks. She had pale skin and two different-coloured eyes. One sapphire blue, the other emerald green. She was wearing grey camouflaged combat fatigues.

“Nadare,” Kobayashi spoke in her ‘mum voice’. “I thought I’d confiscated that exo-armour.” 

“Mum hacked your subspace storage,” Nadare replied with a cheeky grin.

“Damn it, I can’t say no to that face,” Kobayashi whispered. “Yuki and Llif-Gadwyn made the techno-organic interfaces on that too well.” In a more normal voice, she commented. “Which one of my daughters taught you that look? Dorea or Violet?”

“Yes,” she replied.

“Smart arse,” Kobayashi smiled. A more serious look appeared on her face. “The OS is functioning fine? No glitches from the incident?”

“Yes, Aunt Mizuchi,” Nadare rolled her eyes. “Mum and I aren’t stupid enough to try store our armour inside each other’s sets’ subspace storage again. Shall I ask Mr Long to send the base guards to lunch?”

Xian-Pu nodded her head.

“Let’s go,” Mizuchi commented.


	2. Chapter 2

Reiko Kobayashi  
Chapter 2

Xian-Pu and Mizuchi were walking down a dirt road, escorted by Nadare and Yuki in their exo-armour, after leaving the small village that serviced the Army base.

Yuki’s armour was of a different design to Nadare’s, although Xian-Pu wasn’t too sure which one was the ‘better’ set. Nadare’s armour was designed to mimic the human body almost perfectly, great for blending in amongst ‘regular’ humans (and Xian-Pu will never admit, even on her deathbed, that her accidentally copping a feel to see how closely it mimicked a real human wasn’t so accidental). She was wearing a blue-version of Mizuchi’s ‘civilian’ clothing.

Yuki’s armour was, according to Nadare, a scaled-down combat mecha (whatever that was). It used tiny projectors to camouflage itself, and currently had the image of a five-foot-six, blue-eyed blonde, in similar clothes to Nadare, overlaid on its outer-shell.

Nobody was carrying obvious weaponry, but Xian-Pu was glad of the comforting weight of Mizuchi’s swordbreaker against her right thigh. The enchantments on its sheath made it invisible to anyone who didn’t already know it was there.

Xian-Pu unconsciously ran her finger over the device hung over her left ear and tried not to laugh at the comments from the Hornet Pixies, as they tried to steer Mizuchi around obstacles while her nose was buried in a thick leather-bound book she had bought not ten minutes earlier.

“She does this often?” Xian-Pu asked Nadare.

“Often enough,” she replied. “We need to be careful around bookstores. All dragons have hoarding instincts, and hers are directed at books instead of gold. It’s partially why both Mum and myself have exo-armour. How else can we drag her out? Normally, only one set gets issued per swarm, because they’re expensive as all hell to manufacture this small. Aunt Mizuchi’s rank allowed us to bend the rules.”

There was a chime from the device on Mizuchi’s wrist. A multicoloured display of rapidly-changing shapes projected from it. The redhead put away her book and chuckled, as she touched different ones. “Look at all of these violations of the Articles of the United Nations’ Outer Space Treaty of 1967. Yuki, do you and your girls have enough spare parts and your EVA gear?”

Yuki looked at the display. “I can probably convert all of them over to the Jormungandr network, but only have enough parts to retrofit eight from OMBs into OLPs.”

“How long would it take to get just the basics up?” Mizuchi asked.

“Two, maybe three days,” replied Yuki. “If the magic blocking the Gate Generator doesn’t reach orbit, I can go global.”

“Prioritise the satellites over Asia, particularly Japan,” said Mizuchi. “We need to be able to at least patch into the phone and radio networks.”

“Nadare, keep the boss and Xian-Pu out of trouble until we meet up,” Yuki ordered. “Cypher, you’re my ECW expert, and this mecha is only a two-seater. We’ll meet up at the Jusenkyo Training Grounds.”

The ‘human’ image surrounding the armour shut down, revealing a humanoid figure. The Hornet Pixie in question entered the hatchway that opened, and a set of concealed wings unfurled, as the armour rose into the sky.

Xian-Pu’s jaw then dropped in surprise as the whole thing reconfigured itself into a dragon and shot into the sky.

===//===

That night was interesting. Mizuchi brought out a small tent, which she set up in a clearing Xian-Pu remembered was at the very edge of her village’s long-range patrol’s routes.  
“It’s a bit small…” she hesitantly commented.

The remaining Hornet Pixies tried to suppress their laughter.

“So, someone’s going to have to share a bed,” Mizuchi commented offhandedly, as she indicated towards the tent flap. “Don’t use all the hot water.”

_Oh, ha ha ha,_ Xian-Pu thought sarcastically, as she entered the tent, only to find the internal dimensions were the same size as her family’s hut.

“There is a wizard in England that makes magically-enhanced camping equipment,” Mizuchi said, as she entered behind the purplette. “The bathroom facilities are behind the door on the left. The bedroom is on the right.” She walked over to the kitchenette just to the right of the entrance. “I think we’ll cook outside tonight. It’s a nice evening, and sausages just taste so much better cooked on a campfire.”

===//===

Muttsume watched from the branches as the strangers sat in front of a small campfire, a tent not too far away indicated they intended to stay the night. She hadn’t eaten in three days and was weighing up the risks of ambushing the three, when the red-haired one changed from speaking Cantonese to Japanese.

“There won’t be any Combat Air Patrols tonight. You might get caught in Jurogomo silk flying around in the dark.”

She nearly fell out of the tree. The sight of four tiny flying humanoids landing on the blonde and redhead nearly made her fall again.

_She has Suzemebachi-no Yousei with her? Is she insane?_

“What’s a Jurogomo?” the purple-haired girl asked in Chinese.

“You know what an Arachne is, yes?” the redhead asked in Japanese.

The girl nodded in response.

“Jurogomo and Arachne have similar racial traits, but Jurogomo have two pairs of arms on their upper torso,” commented the redhead. “On my original home-world, there were a couple of them running a costume shop in Akihabara.”

She leaned backwards, and Muttsume could swear the redhead looked straight at her before giving an exaggerated yawn and hustled the purplette, the blonde and the monsters into the tent. She then touched one of the threads next to her leg, which she should not have been able to see.

##We need to talk.## vibrated up the thread, as the redhead placed more food on the nearby table.

===//===

The guide looked out of his hut when he heard the sound of travellers coming along the road and opened the door.

There were four women travelling together. Two of them moved like Martial Artists. He really hoped they weren’t going to do anything stupid.

There was laughter from the tall one with the purple hair, as she was told something funny by the shorter purple-haired girl.

“You have to marry a male if he defeats you in combat,” she laughed, “and have to hunt down, and kill, a female, no exceptions?”

“Heyyy!” pouted the purple-haired one. “Don’t disrespect my culture.”

“She thinks it’s funny,” said the blonde with rainbow streaks. “Because there are several races out there who can change sex. The Memorze are an obvious one.” She snickered. “Occasionally, it happens with Time Lords.” The redhead in the group nudged the blonde in the ribs.

The guide walked over to them. “Welcome travellers to the Cursed Training Grounds of Jusenkyo.”

Red removed her glasses and flinched for a moment, as if someone turned on a flashlight in her face.

“Woah!” she had awe in her voice. “This place would have been amazing before all of the roughshod modifications.”

The woman ran into the grounds like a child in a toy store.

“Young Miss!” called the guide. “It’s very dangerous to fall into the water!”

“I can see that! The magical currents in the area clearly show transformation magic saturating the springs!” she called back. “From the ruins over there,” she pointed towards a patch of dirt behind his hut that looked like any other patch of dirt, “the artefact that would have cancelled the transformation spells is long gone.” She ran back to the guide and replaced her glasses. “I’m surprised you don’t have a sign over near your hut, explaining what this place originally was.”

The guide noticed one of the long-range sentries from the Joketsuzoku village, in the corner of his vision, suddenly stop. Red’s comment must have piqued her interest. “Young Miss, would you please explain what you mean?” He led them closer to his hut, so the remaining sentry had a better chance of hearing.

“Most of the ‘traditional’ Kung-Fu temples either have an enclosure for, or are close to the environment of, the animal that particular style,” Red explained. “Part of the training is to observe how the animal moves. To metaphorically get into the head of the animal. Do you see where I’m going with this?”

“Why would someone do that?” asked short-Purple. “The curses are permanent. They risk changing every time they’re splashed with cold water.”

“Before this place went to ruin, there would have been something that removed the spell,” Red commented. “Given that the spells are water-based, it would probably be an enchanted kettle, bucket, or similar. Pour the contents into the bath or onto the student at the end of the training, and they’re back to normal.” She pointed towards what the guide recognised as the Spring of Drowned Twins. “That one there is different. It has a duplication spell. It’s greeny-purple instead of purply-green.“

“I’ll take your word for it, Aunt Mizuchi,” interrupted Blonde. “Most people don’t have Mage-sight.”

“Point taken,” conceded Red. “Anyway, that one is meant to make an exact copy of a student. Well, ‘meant to’ is the appropriate term. There’s some cross-contamination from that one,” Spring of Drowned Girl noted the guide, “and residual cross-contamination from that dried up one.” The original site of the Spring of Drowned Man, the guide realised. “The student getting copied would, in theory, see first-hand their own openings, tells, etc because they were sparring with themselves.”

Their talk was rudely disturbed by a loud “Get your arse up here, you ungrateful brat!” in Japanese.

Standing on one of the bamboo poles was a fat, balding Japanese man in glasses, wearing a dirty white gi.

“But Pops!” called out a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old boy, also in a dirty white gi. “Shouldn’t we check in with the grounds’ custodian or somethin’?”

“Quit your whining!” replied ‘Pops’ from his perch. “You sound like a girl! Now get up here and fight!”

“Sirs! Sirs!” the guide called out in broken Japanese, running towards the pair. “It’s dangerous to be up there!” The two were too busy fighting each other and ignored him.

“Oi! Morons!” Red called out in Japanese, much louder than the guide. “This whole place is dangerous!”

“Pops!” the boy dodged blow after blow. “She said the place was dangerous!”

“Ignore her, boy! She’s just a weak gir- oof!” ‘Pops’ was knocked into a spring. 

The boy laughed. “Gettin’ slow in your old age, Pops!”

“Oh no!” said the guide, pulling out a sign. “Sir fall in Spring of Drowned Panda-“

A panda surged out of the spring, startling the boy, who then took a backhand strike into another spring.

===//===

Mizuchi winced slightly as the boy-turned-girl freaked out. She recognised that look. It was the look of someone being on the receiving end of one too many bad things.

The human-turned-panda also recognised the look and bolted.

“Razorwind, Hailstorm, follow the kid,” Mizuchi ordered two of her, currently cloaked, Hornet Pixies. “Lead them back when she calms down. The panda can find his own way back.” 

She turned her head as she tracked the redhead’s angered calls of ‘get back here’ and noticed a black and yellow shape stumble out of the tree-line and into their path.

There was a message alert from her wrist-computer, and she sent it to the HUD built into her glasses:  
++Primary objective achieved. Should be back within the hour.++

===//===

The guide watched helplessly as the embankment the boy with the oversized backpack was standing on started to crumble, causing him to lose his balance and begin to fall.

There was an audible crunch, as a small crater formed from the redhead, Mizuchi, as she sprinted forwards at a speed that would impress even Prince Herb of the Musk. She jumped into the air, catching the boy.

“Oh No!” he cried out. “Sir! Miss! You fall… in… to…” he trailed off.

The Spring of Drowned Black Piglet was frozen solid. The guide felt a shiver of fear run down his neck. Even in the middle of winter, the springs remain unfrozen.

“Are you alright, kid?” she asked in Japanese. “You really should watch your surroundings more.” She stepped onto the dirt and the spring immediately thawed out. “Follow me back to our camp.” . Mizuchi placed the kid carefully beside the frozen spring and looked him in the eye.

“Yes, Ma’am,” replied the boy. He immediately turned the wrong way, falling straight into the Spring of Drowned Girl.

===//===

Ranma was pissed! He was cold, he was wet, he hadn’t eaten in two days, and he was now a girl. The only reason he hadn’t left his father weeks ago was he was stuck in China with no money, nowhere to stay, and not even a basic understanding of the language.

He stomped back towards where he dumped the backpacks his father had forced him to carry, noting the tent that a couple of girls were setting up.

“Boy!” the bane of his existence called from the nearby hut. “Turning into a weak girl has slowed you down!”

Ranma was the only one to notice the dark looks on the other visitors.

“And who’s fault is it that I’m now a girl, Pops!?” he retorted.

“Such a weak and whiny child! Ranma, you bring me nothing but shame!” Genma called out. “I no longer have a son!”

Ranma felt the usual sinking feeling in his stomach. What horror was he going to have to endure this time? Before he could react, a voice behind him called out.

“Your formal declaration of disownment has been witnessed and recorded.”

Another voice then declared. “I, Yousei Yuki, invoke my right as Head Retainer of Empress Ragnarok to claim guardianship of this abandoned child, Ranma, and will adopt them into my clan if they so wish.”

_An opening!_ Ranma thought. “I accept!” he replied.

The redhead stepped into his line of sight, facing Genma. She was carrying a seven-and-a-half-foot halberd. “As a Japanese citizen, you have three business days to file an appeal with the Tokyo District Family Courts, if you wish to contest this decision.” She turned to face Ranma. “Welcome to the family, kid. Grab your gear. Food will be ready in about half an hour.”

As he picked up his gear and joined his new family, Ranma wondered how long it would be before Genma kidnapped him again. He hoped it wouldn’t be until they were at least back in Japan.


	3. Chapter 3

Reiko Kobayashi  
Chapter 3

Ryouga examined his, currently female, body. It was his third attempt to do so.

“Here,” Muttsume, the Jurogomo who had accompanied the redhead who stopped his fall from the cliff, handed him a tissue which he gratefully used to clean up the blood trickling from his nose.

“Thanks,” Ryouga replied. Any other person would be terrified of being within such close proximity to a Youkai, but he had ended up in enough ‘Hidden’ villages in his wanderings to know that most Youkai, Mononoke, etc. just want to be left alone to live their lives and raise their children in peace.

He looked back at the full-length mirror in front of him. Magic like this took some getting used to. He was inside what was basically a one-bedroom apartment with all the mod-cons. _It would have been nice to have run into the wizard that made these enchanted tents,_ he thought.

“You’re taking the curse quite well,” commented Muttsume.

Ryouga tentatively prodded his barely A-cup breasts. “At least these aren’t going to interfere with my regular routines,” he sighed. “It would have been nice to have at least some curves. The blood-loss and fainting would have been less embarrassing.”

Muttsume placed her hands over her own B-cups. “I know the feeling. My tribe generally has D- and DD-sized breasts. It’s one of the many things I ‘inherited’ from my father’s side of the family.” She brushed her purple hair away from her dark eyes. “I have my father’s eyes, which isn’t too bad. The lack of curves does mean my spider-butt can hide under my kimono a bit more easily, even more so with the runic-stitching Mizuchi showed me.” She sighed. “I just wish I didn’t inherit the Hibiki Curse.”

Ryouga spun around in surprise. “Hi-Hibiki? You get easily lost too?”

Muttsume’s cheeks coloured. “My mother had to string threads up everywhere.”

“What was your father’s name?” Ryouga asked quietly.

“Hibiki Okami,” she replied. “My mother was in an open relationship with both him and his wife Ran. I think they both had ‘arrangements’ like that in a few places. I’ve probably got a couple of half-siblings wandering out there somewhere. What’s the old saying?”

“‘If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with’,” they both said at the same time.

Muttsume was suddenly in a bone-crunching hug.

“Sister!” Ryouga cried, tears of joy rolling down his face.

===//===

Ranma was briefly surprised at the inside of the tent.

_It’s like a small apartment,_ she- **he** thought. I never knew magic could be used for something other than bad things. _Oh, sweet kami! There’s even a fridge._

Ranma’s train of thought was derailed when he noticed movement to his left. She- **he** turned and saw the shapely behind of the Chinese girl. She was leaning over a bench, talking to someone unseen, possibly sitting on the floor on the other side of the bench.

Walking forward a bit, Ranma pulled her- **his** eyes away from the other girl’s boobs and saw an honest-to-kami fairy. Okay, she was probably a Hornet Youkai, as opposed to a storybook fairy, but still...

The fact she had a tiny portable computer in her lap was a little disconcerting. She- **he** shrugged and added it to her- **his** ‘just another piece of weirdness to a weird-arse day’ list, and headed towards the door labelled ‘bathroom’.

===//===

“I’m so sorry, Xian-Pu,” said Cypher.

Xian-Pu didn’t know whether to break down and cry, or to ‘borrow’ that particle beam rifle Mizuchi has strapped to her back, between where her dress’s wing-slits are. She didn’t realise Loh-Shan could be that petty, or the village’s warriors that jealous of all those men challenging her, to do that to her. She saw the redhead in her peripheral vision checking her out, and moved her body _just so_ , secretly enjoying the blush that formed on the girl’s face.

No, she was never ‘going to steal their men’ if she had any say in the matter.

“Looks like I won’t be returning to my village anytime soon,” she commented.

“I’m sure the boss will bring you with us,” replied Cypher. “She promised to keep you safe.”

===//===

Ranma watched nervously as the tall red-haired woman poured some cups of tea, waiting for her to go on a rant for not changing back to a male.

She- **he** would deny it profusely if anyone mentioned it, but the girl’s body felt more …comfortable. She- **he** glanced at the almost-familiar dark-haired boy sitting nearby. _I know I’ve seen him somewhere before._ He kept touching the kimono-sleeve of the girl next to him, almost afraid she would disappear on him.

The older redhead was just placing the tray on the low table, when the gaijin, Yousei-san, who had apparently adopted Ranma made her way through the tent-flap.

“We’ve set up the other tents and placed one of our SEP modules,” she said. “That way any observers don’t get suspicious.”

“Good work,” replied the woman as she distributed the cups. “Now that everyone is here, I think we’d better introduce ourselves to each other. I’ll go first.” She propped herself up on the kitchenette’s bench. “My name is Kobayashi Mizuchi. I have several titles to my name, one or two of which my Retainer likes to remind me of on occasion,” a set of wings unfurled from her back. “I am also a dragon.”

“Looks like I’m next,” said the woman who had volunteered to be Ranma’s new guardian. There was a sound of surprise from the yellow-clad boy, and Ranma would also admit to being briefly surprised, when they both saw the ‘blonde woman’ was some sort of illusion hiding a human-sized, yet still feminine, robot. A hatch opened in its chest and another one of those Hornet Youkai stepped out of it.

_It’s a miniaturised Arm Slave!_ Ranma realised. _How do they power one that small?_

Another random thought went through Ranma’s head, nearly making her- **him** laugh: The image of Genma standing in front of a police station ‘I swear, Officer, shortly after my negligence turned my son into a daughter, she was taken away by fairies!’ ‘Fairies, you say? Just wait right here in this room with padded walls.’

“My name is Yousei Yuki,” said the voice from the Arm Slave’s speakers. Ranma could hear the clicks, tinkles and whistles coming from the smaller shape at the same time. “My swarm has been magically bound to the boss ever since she and our Dryad-Queen married each other.”

_The dragon is married to another girl?_ Ranma thought. _I didn’t think that was legal._ She- **he** noticed a contemplative look coming from the Chinese girl, then noticed it was aimed her- **his** way.

More Hornet Pixies were gathered on the bench next to Mizuchi and were introduced. One of them was typing away on a fairy-sized computer terminal, most likely the same one as earlier, and only acknowledged the introductions out of politeness. Ranma felt their ‘names’ were really callsigns.

The girl with the different coloured eyes was next. She opened the top two buttons of her blouse, and there was a faint hiss, as a concealed hatch above her breasts recessed and slid down, revealing a seventh Hornet Pixie. “My name is Yousei Nadare.” The ‘girl’ was another Arm Slave, one made to look human, but still an Arm Slave.

_Definitely callsigns,_ thought Ranma. _Nobody names their daughter ‘Avalanche’._

The Chinese girl was next. “I am Xian-Pu. My village is not too far from here. Unfortunately, it isn’t safe to go near at the moment.”

The boy in yellow decided introduced himself next. “Hibiki Ryouga-“

Ranma gasped. “RYOUGA!?” _That’s why he looked familiar!_ “It’s me, Ranma! How’d you end up in China?” _No wonder he thinks the girl in the kimono will disappear! Ryouga probably hasn’t seen anyone in months._

“R-Ranma? You fell into the Spring too?” Ryouga looked shocked. “You’re so… so…” his hands made certain gestures.

Ranma started to blush, then looked towards the dragon. “Heyyy! Why did you start laughing?!”

“The look on your face is priceless,” Mizuchi wiped a tear from her eye. “You like Ryouga, don’t you?”

Ranma spluttered. “I’m a guy damn it!”

“Not right now, you’re not,” purred Xian-Pu. “The kettle is right there.”

“Uh, m-maybe later,” stuttered Ranma.

Mizuchi raised an eyebrow. “Ranma, there’s no rush. You might need to practice getting used to your new centre of gravity and smaller size.”

“Y-yeah, that’s right,” Ranma recognised an ‘out’ when she- **he** heard it. “I don’t want to trip over my own feet now, do I?”

===//===

Genma crept towards the encampment the boy was hiding in. Women were just distractions to the Art.

He got within six feet of the cluster of tents…

…and the tents weren’t important. _I should make sure my pack is ready for a quick getaway after I grab the boy,_ he thought all of a sudden.

===//===

Ranma startled awake, then relaxed. Genma wasn’t here to give her the usual pre-dawn wake up. She climbed out of the futon Kobayashi-san had given her and stepped quietly past a sight that made her wish she had a camera.

Sometime during the night, Ryouga had crawled into Muttsume’s futon, and he was currently being hugged by his half-sister. Ryouga’s mother would find the image so cute. Just because Muttsume was a Jurogomo didn’t make them any less family.

“I’ve already taken a photo,” said a voice from the kitchenette. Xian-Pu had a cup of tea in her hand. “They’re just too cute.”

“They are,” Ranma agreed. “I’m just going outside to perform my morning katas.” She pushed aside the tent-flap and stepped out to see Mizuchi in the middle of her morning katas.

Her scarily-familiar katas.

===//===

Mizuchi moved through the next motions of her modified morning kata routine. Whatever was messing with this version of Earth’s magic also interfered with her connection to the Vortex to such an extent that it caused her baby distress whenever she tried to manipulate space/time.

_Now I understand what my mother meant by over-reliance on any one aspect of my training was a crutch,_ she thought. _I’m stuck using my own magic, and I need to keep that suppressed for Sakura’s sake._

Every so often, she would look towards Yuki and Cypher. They were sitting on Yuki’s mecha’s shoulder, leaning against each other. Yuki was talking into a headset, while Cypher typed away on her portable console. Yuki was making what arrangements she could over the phonelines with the Japanese government for Ranma’s adoption, at least what steps she could achieve without physically being there. The rest could be dealt with when they set foot in Tokyo. Cypher was net-surfing as best as she could. Ranma’s and Ryouga’s comments about Arm Slaves, and Xian-Pu’s ignorance of them, meant they would be likely to run into ‘trouble’ once they were out of the rural backwaters of China and into the more populated regions.

Meanwhile, while they did their thing, she needed to get used to using a ‘human’ body. No wings. No tail. No horns. (Almost) no magic. It annoyed her that she had to hide who she was, but her suspicions about how Xian-Pu ended up on that altar meant having to limit what intelligence the village’s scouts reported back.

_Cypher and the others will have to gather some intelligence themselves, before I drop the SEP field,_ she thought. _Speaking of Ranma and having to hide who they are…_

Mizuchi walked over to the gaping teen and tapped the underside of her chin. “You’ll catch flies if you gape for any longer.”

“W-where did you learn those moves?” the smaller redhead shakily asked.

“Some I learned from my mother. Some from my Mum. Some from the other dragons in my home-town. Some I taught myself,” Mizuchi replied. “Our family’s style includes martial arts, weapons, Ki, magic, and any other traits we happen to have. My mother calls it ‘Variable Adaptive Close Quarters Combat’. Aunt Tohru nicknamed our using and adapting anything and everything we learn into the style ‘Anything Goes Martial Arts’. The name stuck.”

“ **My** family martial arts style, well former style seeing as I’m no longer Genma’s kid, is Anything Goes,” Ranma commented.

“So, you won’t have to change too much of what you already know,” Mizuchi replied. “It will be a good idea to relearn your katas in your new body. Female bodies have a lower centre of gravity, are more flexible, quicker and more agile. Better to learn how your female body moves sooner rather than later.”

“But I’m a guy!” Ranma protested.

“So is my nephew, Leo. He still has to wear a bra and deal with that time of month,” Mizuchi replied. “Hell, my wife and my girlfriend both claim I’m more manly than my wife’s boyfriend. Besides, men are simple creatures.” She gestured to her chest. “Distraction and misdirection are legitimate tactics in a fight.” She bounced a bit, causing her breasts to jiggle slightly, causing Ranma’s eyes to shift from her face. “Case in point.”

===//===

They were around fifteen minutes into their sparring match, when Cypher called out.

“Commander! We’ve found UNIT!”

Mizuchi and Ranma walked up to the tiny ECW expert, and looked at the symbols floating from the portable console’s holographic projector.

“You do know I can’t read that language,” said Ranma. “And what’s unit?”

“United Nations Intelligence Taskforce,” Mizuchi replied. “They’re technically an anti-terrorist organisation, but mainly deal with …esoteric… and off-world threats. In this time-line, it looks like they’re just an anti-terrorist ‘private security firm’.”

Ranma snorted. “You mean mercenaries.”

“Yeah, mercenaries,” Cypher agreed. She pointed to a set of symbols that looked like any others to Ranma. “Ooh, but their tech looks to be about five to ten years ahead of the rest of the world.”

Cypher tapped a few buttons, and the symbols changed to an aerial photograph.

“Real-time satellite imaging, plus the radio-chatter we’re picking up, shows we’re under surveillance from at least three sources.”

_Satellite imaging?_ Ranma thought. _No wonder the image is so steady._

Cypher pointed to different points with three of her four hands. “The panda thinks he’s hidden like that, but he will be easy to ditch once we reach the pick up point I’m going to arrange. One advantage to the abundance of mercenary companies is we won’t have to worry about inconvenient questions until we meet up with…”

“Fujiwara Hana,” supplied Yuki.

“With Fujiwara, on our arrival in Japan,” Cypher continued. “We’re lucky the clearance codes from our original time-line matched here. Anyway, this small cluster are from Xian-Pu’s village.”

“I’m sorely tempted to punch those bitches in their faces before we leave,” Mizuchi growled.

“For personal satisfaction, or to see how their ‘Kiss of Death’ affects their morale when they find out Empress Ragnarok is immortal?” Yuki asked cheekily. “Them not taking the hint could become annoying after a few months.” She pointed to the image. “This last one has been watching us since just after we faxed Ranma’s paperwork.”

“Not to point out the obvious,” Ranma gestured to the Hornet Pixies, “but why haven’t they reacted to you, or the martial arts we just did?”

“That would be the SEP field,” replied Mizuchi. “They know we’re here, but they don’t register us as important at the moment. Genma is giving it a good try. Your version of Anything Goes must have a technique with a similar effect to the SEP field. He can see us, but his brain keeps telling him to ignore us.”

“The Umisenken,” said Ranma with awe. “Why ‘SEP’ field?”

“It comes from a book,” Mizuchi explained. “Somebody Else’s Problem.”

===//===

A few days later saw Fujiwara Hana in a sectioned off room in Minato Hospital’s maternity ward, knowing she now owed her friend one hell of a favour.

“That was an education and a half, Hana-chan,” the blue-haired doctor said, as she warmed her hands with her coffee.

“I’m just sorry it’s going to be another six months before you can tell anyone you helped deliver a baby frost dragon, Saeko-chan,” she replied.


End file.
